Welcome to the bookcase.

I'm your host, Shawna Richards, a sometime writer and a longtime reader.

I invite you to join me as we explore the bookcase and celebrate Virgin Islands Authors and Talent.

Each week on the bookcase, we'll introduce you to a local author and learn more about them and their work.

A storyteller lives in each of us, and I'm so excited to give our homegrown storytellers a chance to tell their story.

Tonight's selection from the bookcase is Quadrille, the official dance of the U.S. Virgin Islands.

And I am honored to welcome its author.

Bradley Christian.

Bradley, welcome to the bookcase.

Thank you, Shawna.

Good to be here.

And thank you so much for joining us this evening.

So I'd like for us to start with you telling our audience a little bit about yourself.

Okay.

My name is Bradley Ellington.

Christian, I was born on July 3rd, Emancipation Day, a historic day in these Virgin Islands.

I work for the Department of Conservation of Cultural Affairs Now, Now Department of Planning & Natural Resources for the past 36 years, I work at Fort Frederik Museum.

I started out from a Museum Aid and I worked myself up to to an Associate Curator and then move on into a Cultural Specialist in DPNR.

And that's where I retired from DPNR after 36 years of service, to our government.

I used to be involved in going out to the different schools and teaching Quadrille.

The art of Quadrille and the history of Quadrille.

To schools, not only schools, but different organizations as well, and passing on my knowledge of Quadrille, head tie tying.

Sometimes I'm called to go to the school to talk about local cuisine, food and stuff.

So I have been very active in preserving Virgin Islands History & Culture for a number of years of work with Alpha Kappa Alpha over the years for the Debutant Ball.

I enjoyed doing that.

Traveled throughout the Caribbean.

The United States went to Washington, D.C., and took part in the Folklife Festival in 1990 and 1991.

Former Delegate Ron de Lugo Took the Saint Croix Heritage Dancers to Washington for the 4th of July parade under the Farrelly Administration, the Heritage Dancers Traveled to perform for the first opening of the tourism office.

The first Tourism office in Aarhus, Denmark.

So Quadrille has been a big part of your life?

Very big.

Very big.

Who taught you how to dance Quadrille?

Well Shawna, A lot of people know that I was raised by my grandmother.

The Late Anita Christian.

and she had an organization called the Bright Hour Circle.

which was a cultural organization, but it catered to mostly the poor people in the community that didn't had anything to do.

And when they died in and anybody to bury them.

So her organization sort of took care of that.

And she held a lot of balls.

like Madras Balls, Snow White & Evergreen.

And they use to feed The poor people like the poor yard and the waterfront and the different people, they would go out and do big food sales & feed them.

On different Holiday's, so in my grandmother, house there was always something Culturally going on.

And that's where I sort of started out being raised by her and seeing her involved in Cultural activities all her life And I walked in her footsteps.

So you wrote an entire book?

Yes About Quadrille.

Is this the first book that, you know, to be written about Quadrille?

No, there was one by Milton Paine group, he wrote a book.

But I would say that our book, the book that I wrote is more intense because his has a lot to do with the dances of the original quadrille.

But in this book, we speak more of all of the dances and we interviewed a lot of culture bearers was and pictures of then documentation of them is in this book that other books don't have.

So we were glad to do that part of it because a lot of time we wait in the Virgin Islands when its too late and then our Cultural Bearers Pass on and then there's no documentation as to what they have done.

How long did it take you to write?

Quadrille?

It took us about as we I don't have a lot of people involved with it.

It took about 8 to 10 years.

That's a long time.

It is a long time.

What took so long?

Because it was hard.

At times we felt we wasn't getting anywhere with it, but we just had to stick with it would pick it up, but it don't pick it up, put it down.

And then I said one day, No, this is taking too long.

We got to bring this to a finish And then we just decided, let's go ahead and finish the book and get it over with.

And but basically it took a long time because there was a lot to do and, and a lot that went into it.

And we had to make sure that we were doing it were properly documented.

The right way.

And the person who opens this book will see so many photographs that many decades old.

Yes.

Yeah, definitely.

And a lot of familiar faces.

Yeah, definitely.

You know, a lot of people don't remember Mr. Adam Petersen He was known as the Grand Floor Master And we have a picture of him and a history of him.

he got, fell off working in a sugar field.

he got injured.

And then from then it's where he went to Herbert Grigg Home where he lived until he died.

And a lot of people went to Herbert Grigg Home, including myself to learn Quadrille from him.

So I would say that I learned from the best, or from the Master which would be Adam.

I've learned from other people as well But my main training came from him.

So when you were writing this book, where did you know how to start?

Is it a complete history of Quadrille?

We just started by doing a complete history of Quadrille of a complete history of the dances and the interviews.

You know, we were able to go to Whim Garden interview Mr. Wilford Pedro, who I believe lived to be 101, and he was still in his right frame of mind.

He wasn't a Quadrille caller, but he had a band and he use to he was the flutist He's one of the people that Stanley Jacobs learned to blow the flute from.

So it was interviewed, like let people like him that was able to go and actually sit with him, talk with him, Maud Andrews who also lived at Whim Garden.

She had a band of her own and I was able to interview her as well.

So a lot of the people in the book that we have interviewed are no longer living today.

So I take pride in saying that I'm happy that we did that because the documentation that we have in this book, if it wasn't for what we did, would not have it today.

It would have been gone.

Is that what inspired you to write this book?

Definitely, yeah, because a lot of times college students go away and in college asks them information about the native dance and the history, the dance of where they came from and they would call the library and the library.

We had nothing on Quadrille, so the library will say, well, you know, Call Mr. Christian and I'm pretty sure he could help you out and some of the parents would call me and I would be giving them all this information.

And they would say to me, wow, you give us so much information!

And it just.

out of your head?

Yeah.

Why don't you write a book?

Because I think it's very important because today or tomorrow, you gone, this information goes with you and it is nothing.

So I say, you know, I would think about it and I start thinking about it.

And I said, you know, for future generation, I think we should a book should be written about Quadrille.

And that's how this came about.

So the person who reads quadrille, by the time they finish the book will they know how to dance?

Quadrille?

If they don't know how to dance Quadrille By the time they, It's very simple.

And we have for each figure we have a demonstration and the demonstration shows exactly how it should be done.

So I would say, yes, they should be able to learn and we explain what [ba-lan-say] means.

[Ba-lan-say] When the gentleman positions himself in front of his partner There's two type of [tu-nay] [tu-nay] is when the gentleman and the lady turn each other around with a complete spin.

And the other [tu-nay] is when you promenading and you say [tu-nay] you turn in the in opposite direction So all of that is detailed explanation in the book So I would say they shouldn't have no problem whatsoever dancing it Have you thought about doing an audiobook?

No, no.

But people have asked me, Why don't they do audiobooks?

yeah.

So it's something to think about you know, definitely people even asking me to.

I'm pretty sure you are aware that the Virgin Islands Madras that they have, I'm the one that the Virgin Islands Madras, I created it.

So people are asking me now to do a native costume for St. Croix or for the Virgin Island.

And I'm telling them I will see.

I have designed a lot of costumes.

I've designed all of the costumes that the Heritage Dancers wear for our different balls and stuff and the costumes are very, very elaborate.

They are just the head ties alone and not just a simple skirt.

Elaborated with a lot of lace and stuff.

on them.

The costumes.

sometimes cost the ladies close to 200 dollars to sew one costume, because there's so much detail in it.

In your lifetime, you've seen the Virgin Islands have an official dance, Quadrille and have an official Madras.

What does that mean to you?

I think it means a lot to me because in my lifetime, I never thought I would have seen that the Virgin Islands, A Madras fabric that we can call ours And I never thought I would have done it, to be honest with you.

And I could tell you how that came about.

I have traveled to a lot of different Caribbean Islands to buy Madras to bring back I served on the 150th Emancipation Commission during Governor Schneider.

I had went to the different Caribbean Islands buying Madras And the first thing they will show you is their national fabric, you know.

And I said, but why every Caribbean island have a Madras that they can say is their own, and we Virgin Islanders don't have something that we can call our Madras And that really bothered me that we don't have one.

So, I came back to St. Croix and I kept talking about it and one day Mary Deemer, who was the owner of Quinn House Gallery she had a cultural fair and she invited me to do my head ties and display them.

So I said to her, I'd say, you know, Mary, I would like to talk to you about something.

I said, It's about time that the Virgin Islands have a Madras.

I said, She said, Well, why don't we have one?

I said, i don't think nobody ever took the time to look into it.

To see that, we get it.

So basically she said, Let's do it.

And we started meeting by my home.

We met for about seven years.

Before it came to something.

We decided on 14 things, up, down you know?

And then when we finally decided what we wanted, I said to them, we cannot have the V.I.

Madras.

look like something we have seen before.

It have to be something completely different.

And I said each of the colors must represent some part of Virgin Islands History and Culture.

And I think that's what makes it so unique.

Yes.

That when you look at the legislation, for example, it clearly explains what each color stands for.

What it means.

Yes, you know, the pink, the Caribbean Conch shell, the blue, the deep Caribbean water/sea the green for the sugarcane.

Each one of them have a meaning.

Each one of those color represents something.

You know, when you were writing Quadrille and it's to me, this book now is the definitive guide to quadrille for generations.

And I think it'll stand the test of time.

Was there anything that you left out?

No.

I think we cover just about everything that we wanted to cover.

The only thing that we didn't put in this book that I think we need to put in it is we talked about the Lancers quadrille, which is the French Lancier and that is the formal way of dancing quadrille.

And that is a special dance in itself where it is performed with the band The dancers are trained to do it without a Floor Master.

The music tells them what to do and when to do it, how to move.

And I think that we should document that and put it in a book form or audio form as you mentioned so that people could see that and another dance called Polo Quadrille that we speak about it in a book But the commands are not in the book I say that to say They are several different types of Quadrille, Shawna.

There's Original, Polo Quadrille Some people call it Calvary Quadrille and then the French Lancier and then you have the Seven step.

The minuet.

These are called formal dances, you know.

But all of those dances come from the French roots of quadrille.

Definitely, definitely.

But people are only introduced to the Original Quadrille Like what you talked about at St. Geralds Hall.

They don't know beyond that And the only way they would know beyond that is by joining, KC's group, Ay-Ay Dancers or the St. Croix Heritage Dancers who knows about these other types of dances and people in the V.I.

and I should be exposed to the other dancers besides St. Gerards Hall Quadrille But it's a good starting point.

Yeah, it is a good starting point.

So when we talk about Quadrille and in your book, you talk about you know, Quadrille being the official dance of the Virgin Islands.

Is quadrille danced anywhere else in the Caribbean?

Yes, that's all over the Caribbean different to the way we do it, even our sister island in St. Thomas they dance flat German Quadrille and in St. Croix, we do French Quadrille The music is different.

The commands are different and the steps supposed to be different, but even the head ties are not the same.

but now St. Thomas is now tying Crucian Style of head tie.

When I was going to St. Thomas 40-50 years ago to dance Quadrille, they use to tie their head tie & stuff it with newspaper.

Okay.

Or brown paper bag to keep it stiff?

Yeah.

They never starch that's how I saw them doing it.

Well, now, they are starching it the way we do it.

So but it sounds like there's a history lesson there.

So our influence is French.

Yes.

And St Thomas is German and we're right next door.

Why is there such a difference.

I think because the German influence was more stronger in St. Thomas than the French influence on St. Croix.

That's what I think that they you know that we talk about the Bamboula, but the Bamboula was much stronger in St. Thomas than it was on St. Croix when my interviews with older people that's what I found out.

Yeah so you've been in in in the book in quadrille and you have a section where you talk about the calls for quadrille.

So you learned to call as a pretty young person.

Have you since shared that with anyone else and taught anyone else.

Sure.

Kendal Henry, everyone know as KC and every time he's interviewed.

He would always let you know, he learned a lot from Bradley Christian & the St. Croix Heritage Dancers .

Because he performed with us and if he would call me up and asked me questions about Quadrille and I would always answer him to the best of my ability, whatever knowledge I have, I'm willing to pass on to him or anyone else.

Students have called me up to interview me and Quadrille, but not to say that they want to learn to do the calling.

No, but they ask about the Calling and I explained to them that Calling Quadrille, you have to call to the bar of the music It's timing So do you need to be a musician?

No.

No.

you just got to do Know the proper timing.

In other words, you can't just get up and say [ba-lan-say][tu-nay] Promenade.

it is timing.

[ba-lan-say] [tu-nay] understand what I'm saying?

it's timing and timing.

You the floor master will listen to the music for the bar and that will tell you how to call on the bar.

You could train yourself and it's not a big thing, about it but I've seen people who call and it just like a race they just calling too fast What's the thing that you like most about quadrille?

I like most about it is the way the how the dancers are trained formally I don't like to see the wildness in the way people are doing it today.

I prefer to see more of the grace and dignified way of doing it.

Yeah, because that's the way it should be done.

So for the person who picks up this book, who picks up Quadrille, the official dance of the US Virgin Islands, what can they expect to find in the pages?

They could expect to find a true history of the Quadrille itself, a true of a lot of musicians.

The Miller Brothers is in there.

The Simmonds Brothers.

These are Quadrille Bands.

Joe Paris and the Hot Shots, Blinky & the Road Masters there's a history of each those bands, the members name and everything if they're looking about who, when Stanley started, who the original members are that is in this book so they can find a true history of quadrille and the musicians and culture bearers as well.

I don't think we left any culture bearers in writing the book.

I really don't And you made sure to include yourself at also as a culture bearer.

Yes.

That's important.

Yeah.

Yes, I do.

Yes.

So in Reading Quadrille and in Dancing Quadrille, what's a life lesson that you've learned from Quadrille?

I would say my life lesson that I have learned is just dance, and it's stately.

Yeah.

I have to stick to that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

For all the.

For all of the people who have a you over the years and said, Bradley, you should write a book.

Did you take any words that they said?

Any advice that they gave you and incorporate that into into your book?

Yes, a lot of them did.

Said to me, when you writing your book, make Sure, you list people like Garthy Richards Which is Speedy George mother you remember Speedy George She was a good dancer.

And in the book, when they mention her to me, we have a picture with her dancing in the book.

You know, a lot of things that they said to me we took into consideration I would make sure I, I was jotting down things that people spoke to me in a book that I'd make a note of, and I tried to if I could incorporate things that people suggested to me in the book and some people that bought the book, they called and then me, I see you remembered what I told you.

And I said yes, And I said, Thank you and I'm glad you remember to put so and so in the book and a lot of people said, you are to be commended because reading this book, they said, this is just a document for the Virgin Islands We had former Governor Charles Turnbull Educator, Historian, he researched the book.

Before we printed it.

He called it the Quadrille Bible I would agree.

Yeah.

Mario Morehead, who is a historian, he said, this is the Quadrille encyclopedia.

That's what they refer to it as and Dr. Gilbert Sprauve from St. John.

He also did a review of the book for us and all of them highly, highly praised and recommend that everybody buy a copy So when you published you have, you know, you just mentioned three stellar, you know, stalwarts of our community.

What was the response from the general community when your book became available?

It was like hot bread.

Yes.

Yes.

And when it came out, we sold like 300, the first 300 copy went, I would say within two weeks.

and then we ordered more.

We went to St. Thomas and Valrica Bryson took me over to do a program and I took some books over and I didn't take enough all of what I went with, sold over there So the book really has been a very good seller We had a few books left and Alvin decided he would go down Frederiksted and and advertise on facebook that he was selling them.

and the response was very good.

He did get a good bit of them going, so we kind of have to re-order some Now, we have a few, but not much.

Did you have a close circle of family or friends who help you put all the documentation together because you have so many photographs, you know, so many stories.

So did you have people who helped help you get your book to the finish line?

Definitely, Dr. Yvonne Williams helped me a lot with the book.

Alvin Milligan a lot of the Members of the St. Croix Heritage Dancers As you asked regarding the pictures and stuff there.

they helped go through all The pictures I got.

The St. Croix Heritage Dancers have a lot of pictures because over the years we have kept a lot of balls and we took pictures of all the balls of the different dances.

So we had a group of people that assisted in selecting the pictures.

For instance, when we say [ba-lan-say] we had to had pictures that coincide with what [ba-lan-say] was and things like that.

And what we also did, we went to Fort Frederik one Saturday and actually took photograph of the different commands that were given to go with the book, which which I thought was important.

I learned to dance Quadrille from you when I was probably in fifth grade.

Yes.

And haven't dance it in a while.

But it's like riding a bicycle.

Yes, it does come back.

And and in reading your book, which I thoroughly enjoyed, I was reminded of a life lesson of quadrille that even when you're going in the wrong direction, there's always somebody to gently steer you in the right direction.

Yes.

Yes, definitely.

So you are such a busy person, Bradley.

How do you find time?

How did you find the time to do everything you do and still put together the Bible of Quadrille?

Well, again, the dedication.

You know, I was dedicated to getting this book done and I just had to find the time to do bring it to a finish.

I, like you said, I'm a busy person.

I, I do a lot of baking and stuff , bake cakes and stuff for people.

So I'm very busy doing that.

But then at some point in time, I had to say, no, this have to come to finish and one or two people came on the weekends and sat with me and make sure we put everything the finishing product together So this is a labor of love.

It's it's a labor of love.

And it and I totally agree.

It's been a pleasure to learn more about our local talent, Bradley Christian and his book Quadrille The Official Dance of the US Virgin Islands.

For more information on this book or any of the books featured on this program, visit our website.

www dot wtjx dot org We appreciate your support of our local authors and we'll see you next week when we take another book from the bookcase.